This year, the theme of the event is Innovation by Combination, because we believe that innovation occurs by combining forces, across clusters, across borders and across sectors. Therefore this year’s event features an increased focus on cross cluster collaboration.

But Innovation as Combination costs. So this two-day event will also give insight into funding schemes dedicated to clusters (such as BSR Innovation Express, Interreg and H2020) and a unique opportunity to establish international collaboration with other clusters.

The Balkan and Black Sea Conference “Days of Clusters 2015” is an unique cluster event in the region, which had been held in Nis-Serbia 2010 – 2012; in Sofia- Bulgaria 2013 and in Tekirdag-Turkey 2014.

Small businesses can increase their impact on a region's competitiveness and economic output through business concentrations known as economic "clusters." In fact, nearly half of the high performing clusters in the nation's 10 largest metros grew roughly three times faster than other local businesses between 2003 and 2011, according to a new study from the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC).

Conversations about re-launching the cluster policy have been held during the past months in Chile, combining it with keystones: Digital Strategy, Social Economy and cooperativeness, and Intellectual Property development.

This major new report supported by the Lord Sainsbury former Minister for Science and Innovation, aims to create a snapshot of the most economically significant clusters in the United Kingdom in 2012. It reviews the barriers to growth that they face, and, most importantly, sets out actions to overcome these barriers. Based on extensive conversations with business leaders across several leading UK clusters, the report warns that if key recommendations around skills, infrastructure and investment in innovation are not acted on, there is risk of an impact on the UK economy and the country's global competitiveness.

Welcome to the Global Cluster Biomarker Programme, from the Council of European BioRegions and its partner clusters from across the world. The Programme is building and expanding a Directory of commercial and academic biomarker actors, in order to build partnerships between clusters and individual organisations, contributing to the delivery of the full potential from biomarkers in clinical and other applications.

The U.S. Cluster Mapping Project (http://clustermapping.us) is a national initiative that provides open data about regional clusters and economies to support U.S. business, innovation, and policy. The project is led by Professor Michael Porter through Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration.

The Department of Economic Development, of the Government of the Emirate of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has taken the work on Dubai’s Multimodal Transportation and Logistics Cluster and enhancing Dubai’s global competitiveness as a transportation and logistics hub to new levels for the past three years. In this article and attached presentation, Gayane Afrikian, Senior Economic Policy Adviser in this Department, introduces this cluster, the creation of cluster platform for stakeholders collaboration and the efforts by stakeholders for joint policies and strategy.

This guide is intended for clusters willing to come together in order to create a partnership and expand internationally. It is based on the experience of TEXTILE2020 project gathering 8 European technical textiles clusters. They have applied TACTICS methodology for clusters internationalisation.

The Global Cluster Biomarker Programme brings together clusters across the world to build a unique portfolio of SMEs, researchers and collaborations that drive biomarker integration into healthcare and life sciences.
The deadline for inclusion in the online directory for launch at BIO is June 20 2014, however the directory is a long term programme and profiles can be added at any time if they meet the entry criteria.

The TCI Network is collaborating in the 2nd BSR Stars Cluster-to-Cluster Conference and Matchmaking event to be held in Berlin, Germany, on 18-19 September. It will be Europe's largest cluster matchmaking event in 2014. Check out the preliminary program.

SPI promoted this programme which included the participation of Portuguese and International companies, including Produtech, a Portuguese Cluster representative from theIndustry of Manufacturing Technologies, Alert, a healthcare software company, STI Tecnologia, a technology-based engineering company and the Royal Society of Chemistry, a world leading chemistry community

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This website reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.